Unyielding
by Hiril Elfwraith
Summary: What does it take to redeem the ultimate evil? How much pain is necessary to atone for ten years of destruction? RATED M FOR A REASON. Will contain minor OCs. ON INDEFINITE HIATUS.
1. Chapter 1

_Rating: M  
>A warning: This story is classified as horror for a reason. There will be gore. There will be angst. Details will not be skipped. It is driven by logic, but that logic is not nice. Please keep this in mind.<em>

_Also, an enormous thank-you to my beta buddy on DeviantArt, JeluiGarak. Without her wonderful feedback this story would have never been published._

_This will contain OCs in later chapters, but those OCs are strictly necessary, the only romance is within themselves, and, as confirmed by my beta, they are most certainly not Mary-Sues._

He was supposed to be strong.

He was supposed to be powerful, ruthless, someone who felt no shame or pain or fear, an insurmountable fortress of might. He was supposed to be standing tall, the king of the world as the streets ran with blood and cities crumbled in ruin and his laughter rang through the skies.

And he had been…

But his timeline was dead, torn away from him, his existence continuing only because of a humiliating defeat, and when he'd finally broken free of the container holding him—disoriented, sore and able to add severe claustrophobia to his long list of mental problems—it had only been into another circle of Hell.

He wasn't supposed to underground, chained to a wall, unable to breathe and covered in sweat from the certainty that eternity was closing in on him to crush him.

His oversized core wasn't supposed to be pierced and drained like a spectral battery, the wound around the hated device still streaming ectoplasm down his body even after so long. Said ectoplasm shouldn't have been channeled by the ridged, deep scars marking his wasted torso—permanent reminders of the nightmarish vivisections and experiments.

He wasn't supposed to be too weak to hold up his head.

And he wasn't supposed to be burning with shame and guilt as he sobbed uncontrollably, spasms of pain ripping through him with every sharp breath, tasting his ectoplasm and feeling it soaking his unkempt goatee. He had stopped fighting long ago, lost the strength for it as his fledgling conscience and the emotions he'd locked away began to attack him. He couldn't summon anger anymore, couldn't hide, could do nothing but long for it all to end as he bled and screamed and died again and again and again at the hands of the world he'd wronged.

No solace…no rest, inner or outer. When he wasn't being experimented on, poisoned and ripped apart in the name of science, when his mind wasn't numb with pain it was endlessly reviewing his faults, his wrongs. No matter how much he sought a loophole, the truth he saw now blocked him, cold and hard, ruthless and cutting through his barriers like a hot knife through butter. It left him naked and weak, alone and unarmed before the unending onslaught of guilt.

The nights were the worst. He feared sleep, hated it and the vivid, horrible nightmares it brought forth; visions of loss and terror and tortures worse than the ones he daily endured. Yet waking brought him no comfort, just another endless night of fear blurring into another endless day of pain. Even when he staved the dreams off as long as possible, it was little better. His mind merely brought up memories of his ten-year reign, forcing him to view it with eyes untainted by sadism and insanity, and the hatred he should have been weaving around him like a protective barrier turned inward…instead of soothing his brokenness merely piercing him anew. So long, trying to hold himself together both literally and figuratively; arms wrapped around the open, deep wounds in his chest, sickeningly aware of the sheer _amount_ of ectoplasm dripping down his body…

He shuddered hard and began to cough, a lungful of green liquid splattering his chest and the ground before him. He knew why he bled like this after he'd begun to hack up the raw fluid that composed his being and they'd immediately run scans and tests until he couldn't help but know the verdict. His core was unused to the constant, painful drain on his energies, and apparently it had "panicked" and begun to leech energy from the rest of his body. Even though his lungs were just remedial organs from his unorthodox creation, technically superfluous, it didn't stop their delicate tissues from slowly disintegrating under the strain first, and it didn't stop them from hurting like hell.

He was dissolving from the inside out. Claustrophobia wasn't the only thing stifling his respiration. Each weak inhale gurgled through the ectoplasm in his throat, just before each exhale sent it over his tongue. It pooled in his mouth, drops of it stretching from his lips before falling. Had he really been required to breathe, he would have drowned by now.

Part of him knew that he deserved it…knew just _how much _he did. Nauseating guilt churned heavy inside him until he wanted to vomit, and many times he had…one of the many reasons he now knelt in a puddle of his own ectoplasm.

The deep, painful coughs finally let up, and while his eyes still watered and his breath was shaky and hitching, at least he wasn't really crying anymore. God, he hated to cry, but he couldn't help it sometimes…

_Click._

His eyes shot up to where the sound had just originated. The room he was in, a sort of reinforced glorified maintenance closet from hell, was kept locked. The fact that someone had just unlocked the door did not bode well for him.

The handle turned. The slab of wood pushed inward, creaking slightly, and a sliver of cold dim light streamed in. A hand reached in and flicked the light switch next to the door, flooding the room with harsh whiteness and leaving him blinking stupidly in the sudden assault. His already-sore eyes burned, and he felt a tear slip down his wet cheek.

A white-coated technician stepped in. He wore a white mask over the lower half of his face, but Dan could tell from his eyes that he was smirking sadistically. He was fully aware of the irony that someone wore that expression directed towards him, but he'd stopped reflecting over it a long time ago. Besides, there were more pressing matters on his mind.

He knew this man. He would recognize those eyes anywhere. This was the tech who had more or less been assigned to him. Dan wasn't exactly the poster boy for rational thought, and he knew it, but he still sometimes wondered which one of them was really more insane. He glanced at the thick, protective gloves the man wore, and the corner of his bloodied lips twitched in a smile. No matter how many times he saw them, he always felt a tiny surge of pride and amusement.

It had been a while ago—he could no longer identify the passage of time. The time in the Thermos had confused his internal clock and there were no windows in this godforsaken place. All that he could remember was that it had been a long time since. But he could remember, clearly and with great satisfaction, exactly why the tech wore gloves. He didn't remember exactly what they had been doing, but it had been rather humiliating, and he'd been thoroughly restrained for it. The tech had mocked him ruthlessly for the entire procedure, and he'd been practically foaming at the mouth with helpless rage. So when he had finally, to the laughter of the others, crooned one final insult and leaned down to pat Dan on the cheek…well, it had been enough.

He had moved quickly, striking with the speed of a snake. His fangs sunk bone-deep into the offending hand, flooding his mouth with the hot coppery taste of human blood. The tech had shrieked, his voice at least an octave higher than its normal range, and began flapping his hand around. If anything, Dan bit down harder, feeling his lips stretch into the then-familiar demented smile. Something cracked under his teeth, and the tech's squeals devolved into incoherent blubbering. He felt a sting on his neck, and his vision had darkened.

When he next woke up, he'd been fitted with what appeared to be a muzzle, and the tech had been fitted with a cast. Oh, he'd paid for that one dearly, but it had been completely worth it. When he was conscious (well, conscious and not screaming) he comforted himself with memories of how the tech had screamed like a little girl.

It had lost some of its satisfaction when he'd realized that to him, revenge didn't taste sweet. It tasted like human blood.


	2. Chapter 2

The tech sauntered over to him. Dan bared his fangs in a snarl, but he could do nothing. He was too weak and his restraints were too painful and thorough. The machinery clustered thick around his body was designed to drain him of power from the source. The source was, of course, his core, and, they had decided, the only way to properly access it was to pass a specialized rod through it, as well as the three nodes in each forearm that helped to channel ecto-energy to the hands.

No one cared that to pass said rod through his core, the flesh and bone around it would have to be pierced. No one cared that to get to the phantom's core, the phantom himself would have to be impaled. No one cared that the nodes in each forearm, located between the radius and ulna, were extremely sensitive, and the node in the wrist even more so. They hadn't cared when they'd pressed him onto the device. Hadn't cared as with a wet _slurp _and a loud crack the spike had ripped between his shoulder blades, severely damaging his spine in the process. Had simply been prepared to drill a hole through his sternum to allow it full passage through his body. When they'd pressed his back fully against the wall that the spike protruded from, when they'd screwed a specialized cap of sorts onto the ectoplasm-drenched rod until it met the brutalized flesh of his chest, hooked up multiple cables to it and locked the restraints in place around his sides, their manner had been almost exactly as if they'd been changing a flat tire and it wasn't quite cooperating.

When they'd stretched out his arms, he was already screaming, tears of agony streaming down his face. They'd started close to his elbow, prodding and running portable scanners over his skin, conferring in low voices he couldn't hear over his own cries until one of them had pulled out a marker and scribbled an "X" over three separate places. The dread he felt as they pressed the tip of the spike over the first "X", closest to his elbow, was indescribable. He knew now exactly how painful it would be…

Mercifully, he hadn't lasted long after the first one. When blackness had begun to steal over his vision, he'd welcomed it gladly. Anything to escape the pain…

Since then, he hadn't improved much. As soon as he began to get used to the sensation of the rods in his body, he would be drained again. The pain of being stabbed paled in comparison. And every time, it got worse…

Dan's eyes closed, and he swallowed with difficulty. The tech was checking the cables and wires hooked up to his body. It was going to happen again, and he didn't know how he was going to get through it. It had a long time since he'd had anything even remotely resembling hope, but this…this was a new low.

Another tear worked its way from under his closed lid.

This was going to be _hell._

The tech seemed unusually interested in the skin around his restraints. He rubbed and stretched at it, and Dan hissed in pain and bit his lip as his wounds were aggravated. A string of ectoplasm fell from his mouth and splashed softly into the pool beneath him.

The tech left the room again, leaving the door open temporarily as he usually did. It was both a relief and a torture to Dan. His claustrophobic mind saw it as a means of escape, and yet he couldn't get to it. His rational mind had learned to fear it as well, because the other techs were out there as well, and they would talk until they came to a decision. That decision determined how badly he was to be drained. That was the only time that the door was open.

Several techs came in, and the first one showed them something on his arms that he couldn't see. They spoke softly to one another, prodding and stretching his body as they saw fit.

"…last one?"

"Probably. We'll see."

The techs moved to the doorway. Dan winced. Oh god, oh god…One of them sent a thumbs-up out to the hallway, and Dan swallowed again, hard. _Last one._ Was he going to die? Oh god, he hated life, but he was so terrified of death…He knew that he'd already experienced it, of sorts, once, but he was still here. If his _afterlife_ ended, if his spirit was judged…well, this would seem like paradise, he was certain.

A soft hum sounded around him, and he felt the machinery around and in him begin to vibrate slightly. A whine was building, almost like the charging of an ecto-gun, and then—

His vision went white with pain. He couldn't breathe, couldn't move, couldn't think, totally paralyzed by the agony that seared through his every atom. It was excruciating, _beyond _excruciating. There were no words to properly describe the sensation of having his very _essence_ violently sucked out of his weakening body. Like…like being skinned alive with shards of ice, like a hundred thousand burning needles piercing his entirety., like being electrocuted and frozen and torn into pieces from within!

In those first few moments, he couldn't make a sound. He felt himself gagging on his ectoplasm, and some part of him knew that he was staring sightlessly, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, his forked tongue partly out of his mouth. The whirring hum of the machinery assumed a higher pitch.

His entire body convulsed at the fresh wave of torment. His head slammed into the wall behind him. Dimly he heard horrible tormented shrieks, and recognized them as his own. He couldn't bear this! _…_

"…_not enough…readings…low."_

"…_turn it up…"_

If possible, the pain increased. His voice cracked, ectoplasm pouring from his mouth as he screamed harder. Tendrils of ice seemed to be crawling over his pain-exhausted body, and the rods inside him burned with cold. _Makeitstop…_

"…_definitely last." _

He was so tired…he was so tired, and it hurt so much…He writhed weakly against his bonds, half-sobbing through his screams. There was no warmth left in his body, and it was getting colder. Not even the top of his head, where the flames he called hair had once danced, retained any of its former heat. _Make…make it stop…_

He was more sobbing than screaming now, his writhing stilled into mere shudders, his body hanging limply from the spikes. Ectoplasm leaked from his nose, and he knew that his throat was completely filled with the liquid. A steady stream of it trickled from his mouth. _Make…it…stop…_

He was dying. It was the only explanation. He'd never been so cold, in his life or afterlife. Never so weak. _Please…_

Terror gripped weakly at his insides. _Breathe! _ a new voice screamed, and he struggled to obey, his chest heaving. But it hurt too much…it was too hard…

Oblivion pressed on the corners of his mind, warm and dark and peaceful. Painless. He couldn't give in, though, he had to stay here…_I don't want to die…please…please…_

"…_no more."_

"…_certain?"_

"…_used up…worthless…"_

_Please…_

He gave another weak shudder. Too cold.

_Please_…

Something tore out of his chest and arms, and he collapsed forward. It hurt, of course, but he wasn't sure if he cared.

_Please…_

The pain felt very distant. He was so exhausted…

_Please…_

Nothing hurt anymore. Everything was becoming soft and black and quiet.

_Please._


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Yeah, yeah, I know, I fail at uploading. Sorry 'bout that.

_Floating._

_He was floating. Not hovering, but hanging suspended in buoyant liquid. Instantly, his mind flashed back to a memory—_no, don't think about that, it won't help—

_It was warm and dark, pressing into his wounded and unprotected flesh. He felt it pressing against his naked eyes, and knew that they were open. He tasted it on his tongue—familiar, somehow, but its identification was just out of reach. It was thick_—thick like that gel that time, the one that they put the chemicals in—no don't think about that, don't think about it, it won't do anything—

_He didn't move. He didn't _want_ to move. He just lay, motionless, open-eyed and openmouthed, his limbs spread out and muscles still. He didn't know how long he just floated there, thinking of nothing except a vague wondering about exactly what his surroundings tasted like. It was peaceful, really, peaceful and soft and pleasant. He knew that he was hurt, and badly, but his injuries gave him no pain, and…they didn't really matter, did they? Nothing mattered right now. _

_Gradually he became aware of a change. The liquid was getting warmer. Nothing drastic, just a slight change and not particularly unpleasant, but his mind was unfortunately good at linking his surroundings to his memory. It made his languid muscles tense, _and suddenly he was surrounded with pale green, viscous fluid, transparent, his body located in a small upright glasslike chamber that barely allowed him room to move—it was getting smaller, closing in on him, ready to crush him—and he was in the Thermos again, immaterial, screaming—no, no he wasn't, he wasn't, he _wasn't—_

_With difficulty he fought back the flashback-within-a-flashback. He was still floating in the dark, warming, familiar-tasting liquid, but it wasn't as painless as before. A dull ache was beginning to throb in his chest and arms, and the heat was increasing faster now_—the tech smirked at him through the glass as he emptied greenish-black powder from a small plastic bottle into a funnel connected to the machinery around Dan's prison—NO, don't think about that, stop it, it's just a memory, it can't hurt you…

_The pain was getting worse. The ache was spreading, and sharp twinges began inside him. The fluid around him was approaching the point where it was no longer _warm_ and started to be _hot_. Currents stirred around his arms and legs—_the gel was becoming agitated, spreading threads of dark powder down around him as it dissolved, and his skin began to itch—

_He knew what this tasted like! It was so close…he could almost remember it…It was definitely in the realm of _hot_ now—_the itching got worse and began to sting_—and oddly enough it was uncomfortable. Temperature didn't hurt him, and he hadn't felt like this since…since…—_stinging escalated into burning, harsh chemicals doing what flames could not, and oh god it _hurt,_ hurt worse than he remembered—

_Sickening dread twisted inside him. The twinges had turned into stabs, agony radiating over his body, and he had a very, very bad feeling about that too-familiar taste. It was bubbling with heat now, and it _burned_…He had forgotten how horrible that felt…Light began to filter down into the liquid, and his brain finally registered exactly what was on his tongue._

His fangs ripped into the tech's hand...

He sucked a drop of liquid from the fingertip of his glove, one foot resting carelessly on the shattered chest of a corpse…

His newly red eyes glittered with madness from where he knelt atop his useless humanity as he reached out and mockingly, almost delicately, licked the fist-sized organ cupped in his hands, dripping red down to his elbows.

**No. **

_Deep red liquid boiled around him as he screamed, somehow knowing that this was where every one of his millions of victims were spilled out, and a deep voice all around him, or perhaps just in his head, boomed_, Welcome to eternity, Dan Phantom. Burn in hell forever.


End file.
